Former champions Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray both booked their passage to the third round of the Madrid Masters on Wednesday as the countdown to Roland Garros began to heat up.
Nadal took the first step toward a third clay title this season by defeating Ukrainian qualifier Oleksandr Dolgopolov 6-4, 6-3.
Murray, seeded third and desperate to start turning a so-so season on clay, beat Juan Ignacio Chela for the fourth time in a row, earning a 6-3, 6-3 opening victory after a bye in the first round.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Nadal and Murray both won the event when it was played indoors on hardcourt during the autumn, with Nadal taking the title in 2005 and Murray following up in 2008.
The Spaniard, second seed behind Roger Federer, didn’t need to produce much second-round spectacle for his eager home fans as he methodically dispatched No. 62 Dolgopolov with three breaks of serve and little else required.
Nadal, who has titles this season from Masters 1000 outings in Monte Carlo and Rome, won his 11th match in a row on clay this season in just under 90 minutes.
Nadal will have to lift his game when he takes on 2.05m-tall John Isner of the US, a comeback winner over Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 1-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2.
The 13th-seeded Isner made a breakthrough at the weekend when he lost a rare all-US European clay final in Belgrade.
Marin Cilic, the Croatian eighth seed, beat Argentine Edoardo Schwank 6-3, 6-0. Latvian Ernests Gulbis, a semi-finalist in Rome, upset Russian No. 10 Mikhail Youzhny 7-6 (7/2), 6-4.
French 12th seed Gael Monfils needed only 11 minutes to go through as German Philipp Petzschner quit at 1-1 with a leg injury after informing his friend in advance that he was in pain, but Monfils’ compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga withdrew as a precaution with back pain after losing a first set 6-2 to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
Stanislas Wawrinka set up a third-round meeting with Federer after Argentine Leonardo Mayer quit with an arm problem at 6-4, 4-2 in their match.
Off-court, Andy Roddick was forced out before his second-round start after unsuccessfully trying to overcome a stomach virus.
The pullout from the fifth seed and world No. 8 came before his opening match against Madrid’s Feliciano Lopez, who later defeated Oscar Hernandez of Spain 6-1, 6-2.
■WTA TOUR
AFP, MADRID
Russia’s Nadia Petrova brought Serena Williams’ hopes of improving her Madrid tournament credentials to an abrupt end on Wednesday by beating the world No. 1 in the third round.
Top seed Williams, who pulled out of the clay court tournament in the first round on her debut last year, got off to a positive start, before seeing the match go in Petrova’s favor for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Older sister Venus will be confirmed as the No. 2 player in women’s tennis behind Serena when the WTA rankings are next published on Monday after she reached the Madrid quarter-finals on Wednesday, but Serena’s failure to get past the third round will give her rivals hope only 10 days before the start of the French Open at Roland Garros.
Having only narrowly beaten another Russian, Vera Dushevina, on Monday, Serena looked to be heading to certain victory after world No. 18 Petrova had to have a long massage after losing the first set.
However, the Russian re-emerged to take control of the next set and, as Williams failed to produce a challenge, the third set and the match.
No. 16 seed Petrova, who beat Williams in their last encounter in Beijing in September last year, will now meet Czech Lucie Safarova or Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru in the quarter-finals.
Jelena Jankovic said she took little notice of compatriot Ana Ivanovic across the net, emerging with a scratchy 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win in a Serbian struggle for the third round.
“I treated it as just another match,” said Jankovic, beaten in the Rome final last weekend.
Spain’s Arantxa Parra Santonja claimed the last of the third-round places, defeating China’s Peng Shuai 1-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-3.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Chuang Chia-Jung and her partner, Vania King of the US, defeated South Africa’s Liezel Huber and Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 6-2, 2-6, 11-9.
Additional reporting by Staff Writer
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